Kimberlyn Leary is a senior vice president at the Urban Institute, managing research and program development. Previously, as an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and as an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she directed the Enabling Change program for the doctor of public health program. Leary was also executive director of the Center of Excellence in Women’s Mental Health at McLean Hospital, an HMS teaching affiliate. Before that, she served for 12 years as chief psychologist at the Cambridge Health Alliance, also an HMS teaching affiliate. She started her career on the faculty of the University of Michigan.

Leary served as an adviser to the White House during the Obama and Biden administrations. On IPA from Harvard, she served as a senior policy advisor to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. As a Robert Wood Johnson health policy fellow, she helped launch the Advancing Equity initiative for the Obama White House Council on Women and Girls. Leary served on the Biden-Harris transition as a volunteer part-time member of the agency review team for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. As an IPA from Urban, Leary served as an inaugural senior equity fellow at the Biden Office of Management Budget and as senior adviser to the Domestic Policy Council supporting implementation of the president’s first executive order on equity.

Leary writes, consults, and teaches on adaptive leadership, leading teams, cross-boundary collaboration, negotiation, and racial equity. She holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, and she completed advanced training as a clinical psychoanalyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Association.